Mud
by makesometime
Summary: Wash has had a hard day, and knows exactly where to go looking for someone to do her a favour. Pre-series ficlet.


A/N: A little bit of pre-series Wash/Taylor to sate the plot bunnies in my mind. May become a series of small moments, but I don't want to promise anything yet a while.

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><p>He was about ready to call it a night when a knock sounded on the door to Nathaniel Taylor's private quarters. He frowned as he made his way over to it - no one tended to bother him this late at night unless there was something wrong, but the tone of the knock conveyed no urgency.<p>

He opened it to reveal Wash standing on the porch. Her right hand was clenching and unclenching around the strap of a bag hanging over her shoulder, her left hanging limply by her side; she was the very picture of nervous tension.

"Hey." She said quietly. "Sorry to bother you so late. Can I ask you a favour?"

"Of course, what do you need?" Taylor asked, leaning up against the door frame after determining that nothing was imminently wrong.

"My solar panel decided to give up on me and while I'm more than happy stumbling around in the dark until tech can come fix it tomorrow, I was wondering if I could, uh, use your bathroom?" She said, biting her lip uncertainly. "I know I could use the showers in the base but… it's been a hell of a day and I could really use some privacy." She said, gesturing at herself.

Taylor looked her over and felt a twinge of guilt at the sight she presented. Her clothes were covered in mud, solid up to her knees and splattered over the rest of her. She had a few smears on her face that he hadn't noticed before and her obvious weariness hammered home that it really should have been him out there, not her. Unfortunately, he was still recovering from being on the wrong end of an angry Slasher and taking a nasty hit to the torso, meaning that Wash had been the one to take point.

They'd lost contact with a scientific outpost the same day that summer broke with the second largest storm the Terra Nova colony had seen. Common sense said that these two events had to be connected but when living 85 million years in the past you can't take anything for granted - Taylor knew they had to check it out.

Wash had headed up a small team for the day-long round trip to the outpost. As expected, everything had been fine when they got there, but Taylor couldn't have lived with himself if the opposite had been true.

And now she was at his door, physical evidence of the far-reaching consequences of his getting injured. He wasn't about to turn her away.

"Come on in." He said, stepping backwards to allow her to enter.

She slipped off her mud-caked boots before she did so, leaving them just outside his door.

"You have everything you need?" He asked, and she smiled tightly, patting her bag in response. "Good. Go right ahead then, you know where it is."

#

Wash let herself into the bathroom quietly, waiting until the door was closed and she was leant up against it before she let out a much-needed sigh. Everything ached, from the tips of her fingers right down to her toes, and the majority of that was also covered in mud. God, she really hated the jungle sometimes. Full of dirt and damp heat and creatures that seemed determined to take chunks out of the man in the other room.

Not that he made it difficult for them she thought wryly, pulling a change of clothes from her bag and setting them carefully to one side. Her toiletries followed, and she placed them into the shower cubicle in preparation.

She tugged her top over her head with a wince, the dried mud flaking onto the floor around her. She'd have to tidy up after herself before she left, she wasn't about to set him to cleaning up her mess after allowing her such a favour - especially since that would involve a lot of bending and stretching of newly-knitted skin and muscle and could result in her having to go off even more muddy treks.

Wash knew that he was envious of her today. He enjoyed immersing himself in the jungle in a way that she never would, despite that fact that she disliked being stuck waiting for his return back to the colony just as much. She turned on the shower and finished undressing, stuffing her dirty clothes in the bottom of her bag before they could leave any more evidence behind on the bathroom floor.

She allowed herself a brief, unguarded moment of appreciation about just how _right_ her things looked stood on the shelf next to his, before stepping under the spray and allowing the heat to soothe away her troubles.

#

Taylor sensed her coming out of the bathroom not by the noise of the door opening, but by the waft of hot, sweet-smelling air that came into the main room as a result. Her feet were soft on the floor as she approached him from behind and he resisted the urge to turn to her.

Wash came to a stop slightly behind and to the right of him, her usual position, and rested a hand on the back of his chair as she looked over his shoulder to the datapad on the table. "Are those the Tenth Pilgrimage names?"

He nodded. "Just going over them one more time. Malcolm's doctor friend and her family are due to join us."

"She good?"

"I have enough faith in the man to think he wouldn't have recommended her if she wasn't." He said with a half-shrug.

"Good." Alicia said. "Maybe the next time you get too friendly with a dinosaur she'll fix you up properly and I won't have to go traipsing through the jungle after a storm."

Taylor laughed at her tone. "You don't fool me, Wash. I know you love getting your hands dirty."

"Hands, maybe." Wash agreed, walking back to the bathroom. "It's the arms, legs and feet that I'm not too fond of."

He swivelled in his seat to watch her gather her bag from the floor and bring it out to the living area of his quarters, putting the bag on the sofa and collapsing down next to it. She pulled out a pair of clean boots and started to put them on, swiping a curtain of wet hair behind her ear as it fell in her face.

Taylor watched, entranced by the display of domesticity. It was something that he hadn't experienced for longer than he cared to remember, a moment which called to a long-buried part of himself that he hadn't really reckoned on needing ever again.

When she looked up and caught him watching her she didn't say anything and he didn't look away. A small smile formed on both their faces as they held each other's gaze for perhaps a moment too long… but then the moment passed, as it usually did.

"Thank you for this." She said, zipping up her bag and standing.

Taylor shrugged. "Least I could do."

They walked to the door together and he reached past her to open it, receiving a grateful smile as she slipped out into the night air. She stooped to collect her boots and then stood in almost exactly the same place as she had earlier that night.

"I better get going." She smiled. "Thanks again."

"Don't mention it." He said. "And don't stay out too long, wouldn't want you to catch a cold."

"God forbid." Wash laughed as she descended from his front porch. "Who'd you get to do your dirty work then?"


End file.
